Sunday, November 24, 2013

The term "revolutionary" is overused. Changing your form of government from a
monarchy to a representative Democracy is revolutionary. Browsing the Internet from your tablet
instead of your PC is not.

Revolutions are about upheaval not convenience. Changing your method doesn't change the
context. The core of the word "revolution"
is "revolt." "Evolution"
is just another form of "evolve."

Simply put, revolution and evolution are not interchangeable
terms regardless of anything you see in a Microsoft or Apple advertisement. When you buy an IPAD you're not revolting against
anything, not even Microsoft.

There's nothing wrong with evolving, it's the reason we
aren't still beating our clothes on rocks or retiring to a little wooden shack
with a moon carved in the door when nature calls.

Yet the word "revolutionary" gets thrown around
quite a bit. Maybe that's because the
so-called developed world has long since moved on from debates over social
justice to be replaced by the most popular color of Iphone.

Perhaps the misuse of the term stems from our fascination
with technological doo-dads. They need
do nothing more than change their shape or offer a bigger screen to suddenly
find themselves on par with a certain conflict in 1776.

It's more than a question of semantics, it's a potentially
dangerous devaluing of the term. If a regime
change is on par with the latest "product" we become desensitized to
both. That's fine for the crap found on
late night infomercials but not for events that potentially affect the human
condition.

I'm probably screaming into the wind but it seems obvious
that the more we muddy the meaning of what we say the less value our words
have.

Think about that the next time you're browsing the wares at
your local best buy or Amazon.com.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

In a step backward to the days of the debtor's prison you
can now be charged with a felony should you be 90 days late on a car
payment. It comes in the guise of an
Arizona Revised Statute called 13-1813 and it's being used by greedy finance
companies and fly by night used car dealers to make law enforcement their pro-bono repo
men.

A. A person commits unlawful failure to
return a motor vehicle subject to a security interest if all of the following
apply:

1. The person fails to make a payment on
the lien for more than ninety days.

2. The secured creditor notifies the owner
in writing, by certified mail return receipt requested, that the owner is
ninety days late in making a payment and is in default.

The notice shall
include the following:

(a) A statement stating:

"You are now in default on loan agreement #______________. If you fail to
return the _____________________ (year of vehicle, make, model) within thirty
days you will be subject tocriminalprosecution."

I highlighted the word "criminal" to emphasize a
point. You could potentially get pulled
over by your friendly neighborhood police officer and get treated like Osama
Bin Laden just for being late on your
car payment. From that point you get
arrested, hauled into court and lose your car.

Why? Because it's a
criminal statute and the only thing that comes up when the cop runs your plate
is one word, "Stolen "

That's right soccer mom, you and the kids are going to the hoosegow
if the prosecutor decides to take up the case.
(Luckily, most of them think it's a stupid law too and don't bother)

Upstanding car dealerships and finance companies (and I use the term "Upstanding" loosely) have expressed support for the law...

"Do I think that a person should be held
accountable and prosecuted the same way a shoplifter would? Yeah, I do, I don't see anything wrong with
it.. ... Theft is theft." David Kaufman, Phoenix Corvette Center ( BTW, A business with 2 unanswered complaints on
rip-off report and no accreditation from the BBB)

The law was proposed by the former Arizona Speaker of the
House Jim Weiers who himself owns BHFC
financial services, a small car finance company. Weiers sees no personal conflict in shepherding the law through the state legislature or the
benefit it affords him...

"If you pass
legislation that lowers taxes, you personally would beneift..." Jim
Weiers in a written statement to KPHO TV 5 in Phoenix.

The average car repossession costs $400 but by abusing the
statute a fly by night used car dealer can get the taxpayers to do his dirty
work for free.

The real problem goes far beyond using law enforcement as
armed repo-men, however. It's another
indication of how government has become increasingly intertwined with the
private sector. Serving a summons in a legal proceeding is one thing but turning cops into gun toting debt collectors is quite another.

If you're incensed by the government bailout of the big
banks then you should be equally outraged over this. Regardless of your view on government regulation of the private sector there's a line that gets crossed when it directly participates in it.If government should leave the private
sector to its own devices then neither should it function as their tool.

In this case, we're talking about missing a few car payments not embezzling from orphans. It seems in
Arizona, however, they're one in the same.